Elon Musk's plan to implant chips into people's brains shares amusing similarities to a 2015 British spy movie featuring an eccentric billionaire played by Samuel L. Jackson

• Neuralink's human trials have had thousands of applicants, per Bloomberg.
• Elon Musk's brain chips have amusing similarities to the plot of 2015 movie "Kingsman: The Secret Service."

Thousands of people are clamoring to have an eccentric billionaire implant a microchip into their brain.

That's not just what's going in real life with Elon Musk's Neuralink, it's also the plot of the 2015 spy caper "Kingsman: The Secret Service," which shares a bunch of amusing similarities to Musk's real life plans.

Neuralink received approval for human trials in May. And according to a Bloomberg report from Musk biographer Ashlee Vance, thousands of people are lining up for the opportunity.

The process will involve the patient having "a chunk of their skull removed by a surgeon so a large robot can insert a series of electrodes and superthin wires into their brain," Vance wrote.

"Kingsman: The Secret Service," which stars Colin Firth, Samuel L. Jackson, and Taron Egerton, features a similar neural implant as a key plot point.

In the movie — which parodies British spy films like the "James Bond" series — eccentric tech tycoon Richmond Valentine, played by Jackson, announces a plan to give everyone in the world SIM cards with free phone and internet access.

As the movie progresses, it transpires that Jackson's character can control the SIMs remotely, and wants to put into motion a Malthusian plan to cut the increasing global population by triggering a signal from the chips that makes their users kill each other.

It turns out that chips have been implanted into the brains of the global elite, from wealthy executives to the head of the secret service, with the elites signing up to Valentine's plan in exchange for protection from his deadly signal via the chips.

But the plan is scuppered as the secret agent Eggsy, played by Egerton — a member of the organization "Kingsman" — sneaks into Valentine's bunker, while another agent hacks into the implants and makes them explode, killing the elite.

The film, which grossed over $400 million worldwide, came out two years before Neuralink was founded — though it seems unlikely Musk took any inspiration from a mid-budget action movie for his plans.

And Musk won't look to ape Jackson's fictional Valentine by controlling people's minds with Neuralink's chips, because brain-computer interfaces don't actually allow that. Instead, the brain controls the computer, and its possible applications for those with diseases like ALS could be significant.

The two also differ in cutting the world's population. Musk is certainly not a believer in depopulation, and has frequently stated his belief that the planet needs more people on it, not less.

Neuralink is also evidently wary of any potential accidents.

Shivon Zilis, Neuralink's director of special projects and mother of twins with Musk, joked with Vance — referring to a number of failed rocket launches for SpaceX, another of Musk's companies: "We can't blow up the first three. That's not an option here."

Musk has long been jokingly compared to a supervillain

Internet users have long joked that Musk holds many similarities with science fiction and action movie villains, often comparing him to the likes of Hank Scorpio, a cartoonishly evil villain masquerading as a legitimate businessman in "The Simpsons."

In 2019, Musk even jokingly agreed that he was actually Scorpio in a tweet responding to discussions about a flamethrower he put into production via his business, The Boring Company.

Parallels between Musk and Jackson's Valentine have also been made frequently, with memes comparing the pair being shared sporadically online for several years.

Several Reddit threads over the years have made tongue-in-cheek comparisons between Musk and Jackson's character, sharing similarities between the pair.

Musk is even seemingly briefly mentioned in the movie, when Valentine speaks to someone called "E" on the phone to ask to borrow a satelitte.